


Death and All His Friends

by EndoplasmicPanda



Series: Endo's Oneshots [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Death, Gayngst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Somewhat, why can't I write anything that's not depressing as fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 20:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11699301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EndoplasmicPanda/pseuds/EndoplasmicPanda
Summary: “There is no place for him in our world,” the Mizukage agreed. “He is unnatural. Unintentional. He shouldn’t be here.”“And yet here he is,” the Kazekage said.-Naruto dies in Pein's attack, and Sasuke spends the rest of the war falling apart.





	Death and All His Friends

The cold was a welcome presence in Sasuke’s life.

The companionship, however, was not.

He bit the bottom of his lip, shivered as a burst of frozen air ran through the trees and seeped its way through his overcoat. Fall had faded to winter in the span of an afternoon. The trees were frozen stiff, branches of leaves locked out of time and glittering silver in the sunlight. The far-off mountaintops of far northern Fire Country wrapped themselves in wreaths of white. 

Days were short; time was scarce. Still they walked.

The motions themselves were therapeutic to Sasuke. Trudging through the snow and feeling the way the cold bled through the fabric of his clothes and scorched at his skin, pulling his overcoat closer around his chest to try and ward off the biting wind…

It was numbing. And not just on the body.

His mind drifted. Memory was a strange thing; one moment Sasuke would be treading through the knee-high grasses of the Land of Tea, and the next he would be bracing himself against the harsh, biting winds of the Hidden Sand without a clue of how he got there or how long he had been walking.

And now, here he was. Wandering through the wilderness of the north, blinking through the cold, searching for something strange that had caught his eye.

Post-war nerves were not something to be trifled with. Sasuke understood that well enough. Perhaps it was a white lie that he had detected a chakra signature that reminded him of the Ten-Tailed beast. He had sensed something mysterious, that much was true, but he knew his odds.

The village wanted him gone, so he gave them the excuse they needed.

His jacket caught on a tree branch. The forests were closing in on them now. The path before them turned into a tunnel; long, spanning branches arched overhead, and the wind died to a whisper.

Sasuke paused when he heard the rumble of a storm in the distance, and let out a sharp breath of mild frustration. He watched the cloud of condensation plume through the air and fade into the night, and narrowed his eyes.

He vocalized his thoughts before his mind caught up with his mouth.

“Let’s make this quick before the rain hits us.”

Silence. Blessed silence. Maybe he wasn’t heard. Maybe he hadn’t spoken aloud--

“Okay,” a quiet voice said from behind.

Sasuke clenched his jaw. He fought back the headache blooming behind his eyes and stared at the horizon ahead, traced it as it dipped past the treeline and into the unknown, and tried his best to  _ not think about it - don’t think about it _ .

He focused on the cold. It kept him grounded.

The trees thickened to a solid wall of green and brown and black, and their sandals crunch, crunched on gravel as they walked.

Memories fuzzed again, and the next time Sasuke refocused his eyes, he found himself standing at the base of a large shrine.

He didn’t move for a moment, simply watching the way the rising moon overhead cast long, dark shadows across the small clearing around them.

“Sasuke?” the voice asked, worried.

“I’m fine,” Sasuke said.

He wasn’t.

He turned, looked up at the high pillars of the building before them, and activated his Sharingan. The world shifted into a vibrant painting of reds and blacks and whites, and it didn’t take long for paths of bright blue light, drifting through the air like currents of floating water, to ease into focus.

The trails floated around him, above him, through him,  _ from him _ . Each spindly line of chakra weaved its way towards the shrine, and danced through the walls and cracks and shadowed window arches like the melody of a tuneful song.

“We’re going to have to go inside,” Sasuke said, although that much was obvious.

But Sasuke didn’t move.

The voice beside him sighed slightly. “Sasuke…”

He flinched.

“Sasuke, what’s wrong?”

His hand clenched into a fist.

"I'm fine."

The cold bit at his heels.

He let it.

* * *

Sasuke stood atop a cliff edge. The battle waged on before him, and still he could not fight. He couldn't bring himself to.

The reanimated Hokage fought to his right. Trees and ocean mist and cracks of wispy yellow light came and went, like the grand finale of a wartorn dance. Hashirama Senju summoned a wooden statue the size of a fortress, and the entire ninja army - friend and foe alike - crouched low to the ground as a shockwave rippled through the battlefield.

Something wasn't right.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes, watching the horizon. He could see more fighting along the coast. A masked man had summoned the tailed beasts - Sasuke counted eight of them - and was forcing them to fight a mob of jounin and ANBU in an apocalyptically brilliant battle.

The Nine-Tailed Fox was among them.

Sasuke felt his heart sink to his stomach. He’d heard the rumors, but...

“Sasuke!”

He blinked, frowned, turned. He knew that voice.

A flash of pink sailed through the air, smashing into the earth in front of him in a plume of dust and rock and stone.

Sasuke grimaced.

“Sasuke,” the voice coughed, and Sakura, his old teammate,  _ Sakura _ , crawled her way out of her crater. Blood trailed down her forehead and down the bridge of her nose. Her eyes, wide and afraid, met his. “What...?”

He could read the question on her lips.

' _ What are you doing here?' _

Sasuke flinched.

A roar in the distance rumbled through the air, and Sakura gasped. “Oh… oh no…”

“What?” Sasuke said with a frown. “What is it?”

Sakura’s mouth opened once, twice, three times.

"He's coming."

A blur of red and black and  _ orange  _ smashed into Sasuke’s side.

He went careening down the side of the hill, cratering the earth and cracking a rib.

The blur shifted. Sasuke's Susano'o burst to life around him like a violet sun. Gravity switched off, and for a moment Sasuke felt the world spin.

He skidded across the valley like a meteorite, striking a dark gash through the earth between the two armies.

The ground steamed around him when he stood again, Susano'o cracked and disheveled.

Sakura joined him a moment later, not as lucky.

“Sasuke,” she sputtered from beside him. She eased herself onto her feet with a groan, wobbling a little in a drunken haze of pain, her arm limp and lifeless at her side. “Sasuke, get out of here.”

"Why?" he bit out, Sharingan burning the horizon with his gaze.

“Because after he’s finished with me,” Sakura said, coughing up blood, “he’ll come for you next. And if you leave now…”

She wheezed, and the ridgeline above them exploded.

“GO!” she shouted, and the next thing he remembered before the world went white were Naruto’s eyes, black as coal, as the blond smashed his fist through the cracked ribcage of his Susano’o.

* * *

Sasuke shook.

He blinked, looking down at the blood that was dripping from where his fingernails had bitten into his palms, and sighed.

“Sasuke, I’ve already said everything I can say,” the voice said.

“Don’t,” Sasuke said, raising his hand. “Neither of us anticipated any of it. What happened, happened. The war is over.”

“No!” the voice growled, and Sasuke froze. “No, I’m not hearing that anymore. You’re angry, you’re disgusted, and yet you still won’t talk about it.” The voice paused, collecting itself, before it began again, feeble. “I just… I just need to know what’s wrong. Talk, Sasuke. Please.”

“After,” Sasuke muttered, and he walked into the shrine.

The winds vanished, but the chill didn't.

* * *

Kabuto's body shuddered and died, and Sasuke pulled his sparking hand out of the man's ribcage. The last seal of the Edo Tensei's release sequence lay broken in his hands.

Sasuke breathed. It was over. They had done it.

He stepped outside of the cave into the evening air. The second day of the war was drawing to a close, Madara was dead again, and they had done it. Beams of ethereal light lit up the countryside like spotlights, drifting up, up, up into the sky and back to the Pure Realm.

Madara was dead again, Kabuto was stopped, and they had  _ done it _ .

He ran his hands through his hair. The war was over. He, Sasuke Uchiha, last member of the Uchiha clan still living, had finished the job.

But not without sacrifice.

His eyes ran along the horizon of their own accord, and rested upon a crater that lay imbedded in the side of a steep cliff. He paused, watching the other departed souls leave for the final time, and waited.

Any moment, and another would join their ranks.

He waited, and waited, and nothing happened.

Sasuke blinked, frowned, activated his Sharingan. Even from a mile away, he could see the outline of a body cocooned in sealed tapestry. He watched, and waited, and still nothing happened.

Kakashi landed beside him, bloodied and missing an arm, and still Sasuke watched. His old sensei was talking, but he wasn’t listening, he was  _ watching _ , and  _ still nothing happened _ .

“Sasuke,” Kakashi said. He touched his shoulder. The Uchiha flinched, backing up, and turned to look the man in the eye.

“Sasuke, what’s wrong?” Kakashi asked.

“It didn’t work,” Sasuke said. His heart was erratic and skipping beats. He turned, looking back at the crater. “Kabuto missed one.”

Kakashi followed Sasuke’s line of sight. He sighed. “No, Sasuke. He didn’t."

Sasuke jumped. "What?"

"Kabuto didn't summon... him."

_ "What?" _

Kakashi clutched his bleeding shoulder more and moved to Sasuke’s side. “Naruto wasn’t… summoned by Kabuto,” he said carefully.

“What are you saying?” Sasuke felt the darkness pulling at his vision, but he held his ground.

“The jinchuuriki were summoned by Obito,” he said, sighing. “The rest were dealt with, but Naruto wasn’t. And I…” Kakashi paused, and silence reigned between them. “Sasuke, I’m sorry, but I…”

_ ‘Killed Obito,’ _ Sasuke finished for him. Kakashi killed Obito. And Obito summoned Naruto. Naruto wasn’t gone because Kabuto hadn’t summoned him. And now, that meant--

Sasuke bit back a shout of rage. Or resentment. Or terror, or guilt, or a whole other range of emotions - he wasn't going to try and pretend to understand anymore.

They didn’t know what happened to Edo Tensei spirits if they couldn’t be released to the pure world by their summoners. They didn’t know much at all about Edo Tensei in general. The technique itself was flawed, in the sense that it was too perfect - Tobirama Senju himself had said as such. It was self-contained, self-propagating, and not dependent on a living soul’s chakra.

Sasuke sank to his knees.

Why was he guilty? Why did he  _ care? _

Naruto meant nothing to him. Naruto was an obstacle to overcome, nothing more. Naruto was a goal post - a stepping stone. He wasn’t the main objective. He was…

“You know, he never stopped chasing you."

Sasuke froze.

Kakashi sighed, and groaned as he sat down next to Sasuke, holding what was left of his arm in a tender grasp. "It's true. Even at the end, when Pein…”

He coughed into his fist and went silent. After a quiet moment, when nothing but the sound of the high winds whistling down the mountain above them could be heard, Kakashi continued. "He would appreciate the fact you were concerned for him. Even now. It matters, Sasuke."

"Why did he do it?"

The sun was almost gone now. Clusters of shinobi in the valley began to amass, and small orange dots littered the battlefield as ninja set up camp for the night. Sasuke turned from the horizon and looked at Kakashi - not quite meeting him eye-to-eye, but still making the effort. "Why did he--"

“Sacrifice himself?” Kakashi finished. “Well, you know Naruto. The village had been destroyed. Nearly everyone was dead. Tsunade, Hinata, Shikamaru, The Third’s grandson…” he paused. “...myself. We were all dead. Naruto gave his life to Pein in exchange for ours.” Kakashi scratched at his cheek, peeling off a layer of caked blood. “I wouldn’t be here were it not for him. I doubt we would have won this war were it not for him.”

The sun vanished behind the horizon.

The last of the beams of light disappeared into the clouds, and Kakashi sighed. “It’s almost ironic in a sense, isn’t it? Naruto fighting against the very people he gave his life to protect?”

Sasuke was silent.

The desert was cold at night.

* * *

The temple was barren on the inside, save for an ancient, weathered tapestry that spanned the width of the main hall. It was strung up by a series of frayed ropes, dangling in the air, frozen in time, brown and blackened by years of wear. Tall pillars, coated in soot, stretched up into the shadows of the high ceiling, vanishing into the darkness.

Sasuke walked between them, his Sharingan glowing in the dark, two red pinpricks of light that moved along like a pair of burning torches.

Sasuke threw himself into his work in times like these - when his mind found itself wandering and weaving through his memories of the past and drudging up uncomfortable truths that he wasn't quite sure he was ready to accept yet. Work was soothing; therapeutic, even.

But it was a drug. Sasuke knew it was. A distraction from those harsh truths; difficult to digest, always on his mind, rattling the bars of a cage and desperately pining to come out into the light and reignite some long-extinguished fire of reason he had put out years ago.

Like a bolt of lightning from a cloudy sky, the thoughts returned.

"Find anything?"

Sasuke grit his teeth. "No," was all he said, and he turned back to the tapestry, eyes slits, brow furrowed.

Something wasn't adding up.

He focused his eyes further, straining them, until he saw it again - the currents of chakra that drifted between the tall pillars that circled the room and hung alongside the dust and sediment in the air.

He watched them float around him, stretching up towards the tall roof of the shrine. They tangled amongst one another, trapped in the wells of each other's gravity. They condensed, pulled each other closer, flushing bright blue, then red, then black. They spun faster and faster, glowing brighter and brighter --

"Get out," he whispered, eyes widening. "Get OUT!"

The room erupted in pure white, vaporizing the shadows and burning patterns and stripes into Sasuke's eyes. He turned, hissing, and pumped chakra - as much as he could manage without hurting himself - into his left eye.

He felt it pull on him, felt his vision distort that much more, and then he was outside.

* * *

_ " _ _ What are we going to do with  _ him _?” _

_ A low murmur of discontent echoed through the war chamber, until the Raikage bellowed out a raucous “SILENCE!” _

_ “We have no way of knowing where his allegiances lie,” came the careful hum of the Mizukage once the pattering of the others died down. “Simply allowing him to roam free is most certainly unwise.” _

_ “I agree,” the Tsuchikage said. “We must do something about this. The war may be over, but wounds are still healing. His mere appearance is enough to unnerve others, and that is after disregarding what he might do once left unattended.” _

_ “There is no place for him in our world,” the Mizukage agreed. “He is unnatural. Unintentional. He shouldn’t be here.” _

_ “And yet here he is,” the Kazekage said. _

_ “We are lucky the effects of the mind control jutsu died with its caster, and did not proliferate like its counterpart,” The Tsuchikage said. _

_ “What do you think we should do, Hokage?” the Raikage said, leaning his lone bear of an arm across the table before them. “He is, after all, your responsibility.” _

_ Tsunade brought her elbows forward, cupped her hands together, and stared out the far glass window in front of her, into the cold and dark and snowy abyss before them. _

_ “I have… a proposal,” she said, and frowned. _

* * *

"You want to do what?" Tsunade hissed, narrowing her eyes at him.

"I told you," was all he said.

"You're an international criminal," she said. "The only reason you're not speaking to me now in cuffs is because of your efforts of the war." She smirked, but it was humorless. "And because of my good graces. Don't insult me by treating this gift lightly."

Sasuke stared at her.

"I think," Kakashi said from off to the side, "that it's a good idea."

Tsunade ran a set of fingers through her hair with a huff, leaning back in her chair behind her desk. “Why do I feel like I’m always the bad guy,” she mumbled, cupping her forehead with a hand. She sighed, leaned forward again, and pulled open a drawer on her desk.

A rolled up sheet of parchment was shoved in Sasuke’s face, and the boy blinked in resigned confusion.

“I don’t understand.”

“Those are your orders,” Tsunade said, looking him dead in the eye. “You are to investigate the disturbances you’ve detected across the Elemental Nations, and determine if they are of any relation to the chakra of Kaguya Otsutsuki. Report back as necessary.”

“You had this planned from the start,” Kakashi said, and Tsunade shot him a sharp glare.

Sasuke unraveled the scroll and frowned. “This could take years. Decades.”

“Why do you think I signed it,” she said. “You’re getting what you wanted. I suggest you take it. The alternative is far less glamorous.”

Sasuke blinked. “This mission has been assigned to two people.”

Tsunade looked at him.

"I... see."

He tucked the dossier underneath the long, sweeping arms of his cloak, all the while trying to ignore the bubble of uncharacteristic unease that was beginning to surface inside his gut.

“Sasuke Uchiha, you have your orders,” Tsunade said. She rose to her feet, chair sliding across the wooden floor behind her, and narrowed her eyes. “Now get the  _ hell  _ out of my office.”

* * *

Sasuke woke to the dull  _ tha-thump, tha-thump _ of his own heartbeat in his ears, and to a singeing heat that pricked at the edge of his senses.

His eyes pried open like rusty iron doors, and met blue.

“Sasuke, are you okay?”

He blinked.

The world was fire and ash above him - the sky coated a blazing, fluctuating, twisting hue of orange and yellow and black. Flames licked the heavens, smoke billowed high, high into the sky…

...and all Sasuke saw was the blond mop of hair and sick, chipped flesh of his dead teammate.

“Sasuke?”

“I’m fine.”

He rose to stand, and the blue-black eyes widened in fear as Sasuke collapsed again, hissing and clutching at his leg.

“You’re hurt.”

“I’m fine.”

The blond sighed, bit his lip. “Why do you have to act like this, Sasuke? Would it kill you to open up for once?” Sasuke glared up at him. “Ehh, sorry, bad choice of words.”

“That shrine was a trap,” Sasuke said, turning his head towards the burning building. “Chakra bomb. We must be getting close.”

“Yeah.”

Sasuke frowned. “How did you make it out of there? I had to use my Rinnegan, and even then...”

“I have no idea.” A cheeky grin. “I just kinda… woke up outside the building. Must’ve been thrown outside in the blast or something.”

Sasuke looked back up at those eyes - those  _ unnatural _ , hollow eyes.

They were dead, and yet they weren’t.

A bubble of guilt popped in his gut, and he winced.

“Hey, you’re hurt,” the blond said. He reached out with one of those pale, fractured hands, and held it out for Sasuke to grab hold. “Here.”

Sasuke frowned, looked down at the arm, raised his own to meet it halfway. It was cold, and clammy, and all Sasuke could think of was the rotting corpse of another man that sat just beneath the surface.

“Thanks,” he muttered, when he was pulled back up to his feet. He turned, looked at Naruto, and frowned at the way the blond offered his shoulder.

A cloud of smoke shifted in the wind, and the air between them darkened.

They stared at each other for a moment. Naruto narrowed his eyes. "Come on. It's not safe here. We need to move."

Sasuke bit the inside of his lip, but didn't protest when Naruto moved up to him and scooped him up under the arm anyways.

“We need to keep moving,” Sasuke said. Naruto deposited him at the base of a tree and began to tear at a strip of fabric he ripped from his clothes. “We’re close.”

“Just hold still,” Naruto mumbled, concentrating as he wrapped it around Sasuke’s leg.

_ ‘Leave, or stay?’ _

For a moment - a brief, hopeful,  _ sickening  _ moment, Sasuke felt himself being transported through time, whisking away towards a past his memories clung to like a lifeline.

He saw Naruto, and Sakura, and a younger Sasuke crowded together as they trained, and a nonchalant Kakashi draped over the arm of a park bench not too far away. He remembered warm skies and pleasant summers, and remembered the way life was simpler back then.

_ ‘Leave…’ _

Of course, it wasn’t. Life was never simple. He also remembered how his heart was muddled and hollow, remembered the way he wanted nothing more than to exact revenge on someone he thought he knew forwards and backwards.

_ ‘...or stay?’ _

Sasuke lurched, the back of his head smacking into the tree branch like a stone skipping across a lake of glass.

Realization struck, and his heart hurt more than the lump on his head.

He had made the wrong choice.

“Naruto,” Sasuke muttered, as he watched the blond work.

“Yeah?”

“I’m…” he paused, turned his neck and looked at the smoldering building behind them. “I’m sorry.”

Naruto blinked. “What do you have to be sorry for?” He snorted. “Well, besides the obvious.”

“You should be pursuing your dream,” Sasuke said, closing his eyes. He listened to the sounds of the forest - the way the glowing ashes of the prayer shrine popped and crackled as they drifted through the air, the way the wind rattled the decaying leaves in the trees like cicadas in the summer. Another memory surfaced, and he cringed. “You should be getting stronger, and working towards your goals, and being the hero of the village like you’re supposed to be. Not…” he paused, “not  _ dead _ .”

“But I’m not dead,” Naruto said with a grin. “I’m right here, see?”

The knot in Sasuke’s stomach seized up.

“Besides,” Naruto continued, oblivious, “this is just a long-term mission. When we get back to the Leaf, I’ll be Hokage in no time at all. Granny Tsunade can’t hold on to the hat for  _ that  _ much longer.”

Sasuke took a shaky breath, pushed Naruto away with his other foot.

“Hey, I’m not finished--”

“I sacrificed your dream for mine,” Sasuke muttered. “I chose myself. And look where it got me.”

“Hey, bastard,” Naruto grumbled, frowning. “I’m not done wrapping your leg.”

“You should be alive!” he said with a shout, and the wind in the trees froze.

Naruto blinked.

“You’re dead because I was selfish,” Sasuke hissed, and pushed himself away. “Every time I look at you I get sick to my stomach, because you’re stuck here. And there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Naruto rose to his feet, fists clenched at his sides, eyebrows fierce and knotted across his crackled forehead. “Is that it? Is that why you’re so fucking pissed?”

Sasuke narrowed his eyes, and took to his feet as well. “Let’s get moving.”

“No!” Naruto reached forward and grabbed Sasuke’s arm, knocking him backwards against the trunk of a nearby tree. “I’m tired of just ignoring this.”

“You’re  _ dead _ . Get that through your thick skull.”

“No, I’m not!” Naruto slammed his fist into the tree behind Sasuke’s face, and the wood splintered under the pressure.

“Yes, you are!” Sasuke shoved Naruto back with both hands, and he went tumbling backwards, off-balance. “Stop denying it!”

What followed wasn’t entirely unlike them - Naruto leapt out with a fire in his eyes, and Sasuke stood his ground, prepared for war.

They sparred for what felt like hours, even as the rain finally broke in the clouds high above and their spar devolved into rolling around in the mud like animals.

“I’m  _ not  _ dead!” Naruto finally said, when he had pinned Sasuke to the ground by his shoulders. “Do I look dead to you?”

“Yes,” Sasuke said, rage in his eyes. “Yes, you  _ do _ . How can’t you see it?”

“What?” Naruto said, standing. “That I’m an Edo Tensei summon?”

Sasuke froze.

“You didn’t think I could  _ tell? _ ” Naruto raised an eyebrow, surprise winning out over rage. “How stupid do you think I am?”

“Do you really want to know the answer to that question?” Sasuke bit out. “You’re dead, Naruto. Your body is long gone. You’re just… just…” His hands shook by his sides. “Just a  _ fake _ .”

“I don’t care!”

Sasuke froze. “What?”

“I said I don’t care,” Naruto growled. “Why is this so hard for you to understand?”

“Because…”

It was as if the world had switched to a negative of itself, and everything Naruto said came out in another language. “Because your life is ruined now. You can’t do any of the things you wanted to do. You’re  _ stuck _ like that, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“So?”

“ _ You can’t become Hokage _ ,” Sasuke gritted out, speaking each syllable with slow and delicate purpose. “Do you know  _ why _ they sent you with me on this mission? Because they don’t know what to do with you. The village is afraid of you, Naruto.”

Naruto rolled his eyes, and sighed, shaking his head. “Why is that any different than how the rest of my life was?”

Sasuke blinked. “ _ What? _ ”

“I grew up with the Nine-Tails,” Naruto said. “I know what it’s like having something forced onto me that I don’t exactly like.” He raised an eyebrow. “And the same thing happened to you. You should know what I mean. You’re here too, after all. Stuck in the middle of nowhere on a mission that's probably hopeless.”

“This isn’t like me and my brother at all.” Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "And I'm here because I asked to be here."

“Not just your brother,” Naruto said. “Your clan. Your parents. All of that counts too, y’know.”

“But…” Sasuke sighed, suddenly feeling fifty pounds heavier and many years older. The long list of arguments and contradictions in his head were falling dead at his feet, so he just shook his head. “You should be sad.”

Naruto smiled - a gangled, melancholic,  _ understanding  _ smile that Sasuke would have wiped off his teammate’s face with a fist were he not so exhausted. “I just have to work harder. I’m the same ol’ me, but now I need to make sure everyone knows it.” He smirked, and the air lightened between them. “I can be Hokage for forever now.”

“That’s a disturbing thought.”

Naruto laughed - and for once, the sound of his voice didn’t send shivers of ice down Sasuke’s spine.

They were quiet for a moment, and Sasuke realized that the rain had stopped. What was left of the fire sent dark black smoke billowing up into the sky, and the clouds were thinning by each passing beat of his heart in his chest.

“I could have stopped this,” he said, voice quiet and strained. “You wouldn’t have died if I hadn’t left.”

“But I’m  _ not  _ dead,” Naruto smiled. “At least, not in spirit. And don’t blame yourself. I sacrificed myself.  _ I _ made that choice for myself, not anyone else.” He scoffed. “Least of all you. What happened to me happened. I went out on my own terms, not anyone else’s. And I’m pretty happy about that.”

The fatigue from the Rinnegan, the fatigue from the sparring and the anger and the rage began to grow, and Sasuke felt himself tipping forward on his feet, vision narrowing with each step.

He grabbed at the tree beside him, righting himself, and took an unsteady step forward.

“Whoa, Sasuke?”

“I may have… overdone it with the teleportation jutsu earlier,” Sasuke muttered. “I was panicking. Put too much chakra into it.”

He slinked down the side of the tree. Naruto caught him as he fell.

"Quit beating yourself up," Naruto said. He wiped a streak of mud off of Sasuke's face. "You've had a bad life. But now's your chance to make up for it. Do something meaningful."

“You’re too cold,” Sasuke muttered, and began to tip forward.

"You're too warm," Naruto smirked.

His face pressed into the corner of Naruto's icy neck.

But cold, Sasuke thought as his vision faded, wasn’t always such a bad thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> This was inspired by a post from Bomahe on FFN.net, found [**here**](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12265811/1/What-Kind-of-Ninja-Doesn-t-Know-They-re-Dead).
> 
> This took me 10 months to write. I've rewritten it twice. Can I rewrite it again? Definitely. Do I want to? Definitely not. I'm happy with where it is now. More importantly, I've finally gotten this out of my WIP folder and out into the world. Now I can move on to some other stuff!
> 
> Special thanks to both [**Enbi**](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Enbi/pseuds/Enbi) and [**Nemesis_Queer**](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nemesis_queer/pseuds/nemesis_queer) for putting up with my nonsense and reading this every time I changed it and threw it back at them. They are gems and deserve all your attention.
> 
> Check out my [**Tumblr**](http://endoplasmicpanda.tumblr.com/), if you're interested!


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